The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

First Aid For The Ailing Houses

Recently a preparation has been developed which successfully (and harmlessly) keeps pigeons (someone else's) and birds from "parking" where they're not wanted. This can be sprayed on trees, window sills, building fronts; a good many cities, in fact, have used it with great success. While odorless to humans, colorless, and harmless, it simply makes the area uncomfortable to birds' feet; they just don't like to stand on it, so they go elsewhere. It's called Roost-No-More.

An idea that seems to work especially well with pigeons is to use toy snakes, the variety that is made of blocks of wood wired together. One or two of these placed along the roof or along cornices where the birds usually collect will have the effect of driving the pigeons off without harm to the birds, for the movement of these snakes in a wind is very lifelike.

It goes without saying that nothing of this sort should be done during the nesting season or before the nestlings are sufficiently developed to take care of themselves.

BATS

Bats are beneficial to man because of their continual attack on insects; for this reason they should not be destroyed. They may annoy when they come into a house for their sleeping hours, which may be as much as 20 of every 24. Bats can enter through crevices seemingly much too small. To keep them out of an attic or elsewhere, all such crevices should be found and closed. When bats return to a house with regularity, they can be driven out by burning a sulphur candle. Bats will be attracted by light. At night, a room in which a bat is flying should be darkened and a light placed in an ad- joining room with the connecting door open; the bat will fly to the light and by repeating this process can be led outdoors. The lights of an automobile turned on an open window will have the same effect.

SQUIRRELS AND CHIPMUNKS

Squirrels and chipmunks can do great damage to a house and furnishings, and should be kept out. They will usually enter an attic from the roof. Overhanging tree branches by which they reach a roof should be trimmed, and other paths closed or removed. A watch should be kept to discover the openings by which they can enter a house, these to be dosed by pieces of sheet metal or insect screening. When established in a house, these animals will usually be out collecting food during the daylight hours; the entrance holes having been noted, they should be closed at that time. Burning a sulphur candle will drive them out. Be careful of fire. Moth balls copiously scattered about their nesting places will have the same effect, and be safer. Blowing "paradi" moth flakes into the area with a vacuum cleaner is another method.